She calls herself Mary Oliver’s Drunk Cousin. Lyndsay Rush is the living poet I’m celebrating today during the 2026 Slice of Life Challenge. You can read all the posts each day at www.twowritingteachers.org as writers blog throughout March and post their links on the community site. If I had a colleague at the water cooler flattening her hand to admire her nail polish and declaring that she was so damn sure she would never read a poem she liked, this is the book I’d hand her before retreating around the corner and peering over the top of the cubicle at her in her chair devouring these poems and proving herself wrong.
Lyndsay Rush, author of A Bit Much, got her start as an Instagram poet. Click her name to read the interview that gives more information about Lyndsay. I’ve used her collection to create a Cento poem by writing several of her existing lines into a new arrangement.
The Dark Doorway
You heard it here first:
Otters hold hands while they sleep
If you’re feeling weird lately
stand in the dark doorway of
The Gospel I was raised on
for the nonbelievers
and drive off into the sunset
Lines in this Cento are taken from these poems, in this order: Maybe Crocs are Okay; Loving Each Otter; Help; Someone to Eat Chips With; His Body is Bread and So is Mine; Beware of Lost Boys; A Spell for Success
Common Threads 
You got me with the otters. I love anything about otters. First time I’ve heard of a Cento poem too.
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Kim,
There’s a lot packed into this poem, especially the lines about “the gospel for nonbelievers.” Oof! I know THAT gospel and its whip. I follow LR on Instagram. Lots of good posts there. I keep of file of poems that inspire me when I scroll. I think I need this collection. After all, there are otters holding hands in those pages.
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